Going Dark (Thorn Mysteries) (33 page)

“This is in the closed loop?”

“Correct. The network that runs internal plant operations.”

“So how does it get set off? Someone inside?”

“Could be that, or could be it’s triggered by some other signal. Like a surge of data, a flicker in the power source. I haven’t figured that out.”

“Solution?”

“Quarantine.”

“Put a tent over a nuke plant? What is that? Shut it down?”

“Just until all the software can be scrubbed.”

“Jesus, shut down the whole plant?”

“If you’ve got a better idea…”

“Can’t do that, Angie. You keep working, just do your best.”

The ride down I-95 at ten-fifteen on a Tuesday night was slow going. Must’ve been a concert at AmericanAirlines Arena downtown or some damn thing. His four guys were telling jokes in the backseats. A gorilla and a nun are sitting at a bar. When that one’s done, Dinkins starts with an old favorite, an Irishman and a Brit and a Scotsman stumble into a pub, Dinkins nailing the accents. The guys laughing from the beginning at the elaborate setup.

Nicole looked over at Frank, alone with him in the front seats. “That talk Portia gave you.”

Frank said nothing, watching the traffic breaking up ahead as they left 95 and headed west on the Don Shula Expressway.

Nicole said, “There’s another side to the story.”

“This probably isn’t the time.”

The guys were fully engaged with the joke-off in the rear seats. A priest stumbles into a brothel. Voices quieting down as the humor turned smutty.

“Just so you know, Frank. There
is
another version. I’m not the person Portia told you about. She twists everything to fit her political agenda. Every successful woman is a slut, except for her.”

“Let’s do this later.”

She was in the speed lane, clipping along well over the limit. “Fuck it. Believe what you want to believe.”

“Everything okay up here?” Dinkins was leaning forward, hands on the back of their seats. His face between them.

“We’re cool,” Frank said.

Dinkins gave Sheffield a long look, then sat back in his seat.

Frank swiveled around, looked at his guys, everyone watching him. “Okay. So the Dalai Lama goes to see a chiropractor.”

*   *   *

Two miles from Turkey Point, Leslie Levine pulled the battered SUV onto the shoulder of the entrance road. The three gators, their snouts duct-taped shut, were flopping around inside the cage, straining the slats, probably agitated by the proximity of the python in the other side of the box.

They were small gators, two years old, the longest only four feet, snout to tip of tail. But Leslie was satisfied. They’d do the trick. Clear out the control room in a hurry and give the whole enterprise the media-friendly weirdness she was after. And the symbolism was on point. The clash of the natural world with the technological nightmare of the power plant.

Though to Thorn, the dopiness of it harked back to those yippie stunts of his youth, revolutionaries showering dollar bills onto the floor of the US Stock Exchange and mocking the mad scramble that ensued. Fine for that trippy time, but in this somber, hair-trigger era, goofing with a nuke plant, gators or not, wasn’t going to be anybody’s idea of comedy.

It struck him, as they waited in silence, that this felt like a caper concocted in a log cabin way off in the woods, a gang of twenty-year-old ringleaders all stoned and giddy, saying, yeah, yeah, gators, man, and Burmese fucking pythons, yeah, that’s fucking perfect. But out on the lonely, dark stretch to the power plant, the smell of the gators filling the car, as gamy and fetid as stagnant water, the mood was not giddy.

Leslie’s binoculars were trained on the patch of lighted roadway a few hundred yards back down the asphalt, a single streetlamp shining amid miles of utter darkness. No traffic had passed by since they’d pulled onto the shoulder. Twenty minutes of waving away mosquitoes, their whine the only thing that broke the deadly silence.

Thorn was riding shotgun, Cameron and Pauly in the backseat. Leslie standing out on the edge of the road with the binoculars.

“Maybe it was called off.” Cameron’s voice was tight.

“It’s not eleven yet,” Leslie said. “Relax. We’re fine.”

“That ditch is full of water,” Thorn said. “They’ll drown, you leave them there.”

No one answered.

The highway had narrow shoulders. The deep gully on one side, a flood canal on the other. A perfect choke point.

Leslie’s cell phone rang, she took it from her pocket, checked the screen, and answered. Listened for a minute, then said, “Okay, I understand. Loading-ramp door, it’s open? Good.” Then clicked off.

Thorn looked at the keys hanging from the ignition. Scoot over, crank the engine, race down the highway, he might get a hundred feet before Pauly throttled him. Or he could hop out here, make a dash. But even if he managed to outrun them and save himself, Sugarman and Flynn could be doomed. Sugar, immobilized, vulnerable to Wally’s whims. Flynn left dangling. No telling how any of that might play out.

Too many variables, all of them risky. He saw no choice but to ride this out a few steps further, alert for his best chance to trip them up.

“It’s them,” Leslie said. “Get set.”

She handed Thorn the binoculars, slipped behind the wheel of the SUV, started the engine, pulled across the road, angling toward the approaching vehicle, then switched on her flashing emergency lights.

“Fucking A,” Cameron said. “Let’s shut this city down.”

In the cargo hold the gators thrashed and grunted in their wooden box as though sensing the rising tension. Thorn set the binoculars at his feet and tightened his seat belt. He watched the headlights bearing down, then turned the other way toward the long stretch of highway, squinting into the darkness where they were headed, where his starry-eyed son was to meet them in an hour’s time.

“Don’t worry, Thorn.” Leslie patted him on the thigh. “Flynn will be safe. I’d never let anything happen to the father of my child.”

THIRTY-NINE

“WHAT THE FUCK?”

“Slow down, McIvey.”

Dinkins leaned forward, stuck his head between the seats.

“This part of the drill?”

“Looks like an add-on,” Frank said. “What do you think, McIvey?”

“What do you want me to do?”

“Is there a choice?” said Sheffield. “We stop, find out what the hell’s going on. Could be an accident.”

“Doesn’t look like any accident,” Dinkins said.

“Put your brights on. Roll up close. Everybody stay put.”

As Nicole coasted forward, coming to within thirty feet of a beat-up SUV, four people piled out wearing FBI uniforms and white reflective armbands identical to their own. Two of the four had weapons drawn.

“Reverse it, McIvey. Get out of here.”

Nicole slipped the shifter into park, drew out the ignition keys, and dropped them at her feet.

“Oh,” Sheffield said. “That’s how it is.”

“Run, Frank? Really?”

“Hey, what do we do, Shef?” Dinkins speaking for the others.

A slender woman with short hair, holding a revolver at her side, stepped into the headlights. A giant muscled-up guy moved beside her, held his hand up to block the brights, another guy hanging a few steps back.

“So how’s this supposed to go down, McIvey? You save the day, win a Medal of Honor? Because, boy oh boy, I’d pay good money to see that.”

Another man with a ponytail, lean and athletic, loped into the shadows to their right.

“Pauly Chee,” Frank said. “Our bomber.”

“We being carjacked?” Dinkins said.

“Worse,” said Frank.

“Bad night to be unarmed,” Dinkins said.

Chee was at his window, tapping on the glass with his Glock, motioning him to crank open the window.

“Or I’ll smash it,” Pauly yelled.

“These the ones from Prince Key?” Dinkins again.

Sheffield told him, yeah, it was them, the fucking peaceniks.

Looking out his window at Pauly Chee, Frank said to Nicole, “I’m curious. The boathouse, that first night. Was it real? Or just to set this up?”

“It felt real, didn’t it, Frank? Isn’t that what matters?”

McIvey pressed the electronic lock release on her door panel.

“All this just to get past Portia? That’s nuts. You know that, right? How crazy you are.”

“Fuck you, Frank.”

“We tried that. Didn’t work out so well.”

Frank’s door swung open.

“Which one of you is Sheffield?”

Frank waved a hand.

Chee grabbed his shoulder and dragged him out onto the dark road.

Then Pauly stuck his head back inside the SUV and said, “The rest of you stay put or this shitheel dies.”

*   *   *

Leslie kept ordering Pauly to stop. No, no, no. But he ignored her. Taking charge.

Thorn watched as Pauly dragged an agent from the passenger side of the big SUV and shoved him into the glare of the headlights.

And good Christ, it was Sheffield. The feds had sent the first team.

Twice in recent years Thorn had observed Frank in action, seen up close what he was capable of. A smart, savvy guy, grace under devastating pressure. Not the man you wanted on the other side of the ball.

“Cuff him.” Pauly left him with Prince and returned to the big SUV.

“Now one by one,” he called out. “Step out of the car. Driver next.”

Cameron wrestled Frank’s wrists behind him and clipped the flex cuffs on. When he was done, Sheffield took a couple of steps toward Leslie and Prince grabbed his arm and yanked him to a halt.

“This is a serious error, Levine,” Frank said. “Yeah, yeah, I know who you are and I know what you did. Faked your death so Mom would have a story to tell your little girl, Julie, when she asks about you someday.”

Thorn saw her stiffen, the pistol rising, aiming at Frank.

“Am I right?”

“My daughter has no part in this.”

“Of course not, but I bet dear old mom has a clue what you’re up to, which is what we call conspiracy. It’s enough to ship Julie off to foster care. That what you want?”

“My mother knows nothing.”

“We’ll sort that out later,” Frank said. “Meanwhile, best thing you can do right now, put away the guns and we sit down, figure how to handle the next part. So far, I don’t see any major crimes committed. Nothing a good lawyer couldn’t help you out of.”

Pauly had come back to Sheffield’s side. “Stop talking. All of you.”

“And you, you’re Pauly Chee, went AWOL from your SEAL unit three years ago. Ripped off a stockpile of high explosives when you deserted.”

Pauly stared into Frank’s eyes for a long moment, then raised his pistol and slashed it across Frank’s face, drove him to his knees.

Thorn lunged past Leslie and shoved Pauly away. “Back off. No reason for this.”

Thorn stood with his arms spread, shielding Sheffield. Chee just smiled. The first one Thorn had seen on Pauly’s lips. The tolerant grin of a grown man challenged by a child.

Sheffield’s men threw open the rear doors and gathered at the front of the SUV, readying for a charge. Pauly turned to face them, his pistol rising.

“They’re unarmed,” Frank said. “Don’t shoot.”

The driver’s-side door came open and a woman, dressed like the others, stepped out and moved away from the car into the shadows beyond the dazzle of headlights. Only her white reflective armband showed her location.

“Pauly Chee,” she called out. “Drop your weapon. You, too, Levine. Hold your arms straight out, let them fall.”

“Nicole, stop it now,” Frank yelled at her. “Everyone, hold on. Don’t listen to Ms. McIvey. She’s unarmed. We’re all unarmed. Our pistols, they’re not loaded. This is a drill. Nobody needs to get hurt.”

“Now,” Nicole called out. “Weapons on the ground. I’m not saying it again.”

“She’s bluffing,” Sheffield said. “Don’t shoot the lady.”

With his pistol aimed into the shadows where the armband glowed, Pauly took a step, then another. The emergency flashers continued to count off the seconds in red.

Thorn angled in front of Pauly, put his back to the woman named Nicole, planted his left hand on Pauly’s chest.

Pauly looked down at the hand and swatted it away. Thorn stepped past him and into the path of Leslie’s gaze. Her eyes were unfocused, mouth open.

“Leslie, wake up. This isn’t what you’re about. Shooting people, no. This game is done. You tried, it was a noble cause, but it didn’t work. We have to stop this right here, right now.”

Behind him the woman fired a single shot, and a hot tug against Thorn’s left thigh spun him around. As he caught himself and regained his balance, two more shots flared in the darkness. Then two more. The clang of metal as the rounds punctured the SUV’s fender. All misses except for the first.

Thorn touched the edge of his thigh. A tear in his trousers, damp and warm, a numb patch spreading like melted wax toward his knee.

Sheffield’s agents had taken cover at the far side of their SUV.

Frank was on his feet, yelling at the shooter. “Nicole, goddamn it. Throw the weapon out. Throw it out here now.”

“You call that unarmed?” Pauly raised his pistol.

“Goddamn it, Nicole, throw down your gun.”

The woman stepped into the halo of light, pistol outstretched, hand steady. A step forward, then another.

“You’ve been bad.” Her voice was cool and vacant as if she were rehearsing a speech alone in a room, simply trying it out. “You’ve behaved badly for a long time, been dishonest and disreputable. You’ve brought shame and humiliation on yourselves and your cause. Now it’s judgment day.”

She was blond and slender, a delicate build, her mouth gritted into a hard smile that was devoid of emotion.

“Leslie,” Thorn said quietly. “You can do it. You can stop this.”

“No, she can’t,” Pauly said. “We’re too far down the road.”

As casually as one might snuff out a candle flame, Pauly squeezed off two rounds. The woman bucked as if jackhammered in the belly. Her shriek was short and faded to a moan as she sank to the ground.

Sheffield stared down at his shoes, shaking his head.

Beyond the glow of the headlights and the steady beat of the flashers, the darkness seemed to wobble. An unsteady flicker invaded the light. Thorn fought off the woozy spin, walked across the asphalt to Leslie’s side. The left leg was gimpy and uncertain, but it was still supporting him. No reason to explore the wound, see its extent. Not now.